I find it hard to believe we put 100 miles on the car within the park, but that’s what the log book says.

This day began with a drive up Going to the Sun Road. Words do not easily describe the scenery. Look at the pictures and imagine these peaks taking up your entire field of vision. Like Grand Canyon many years later I found it hard to take a bad picture of the mountains here, but just as hard to take a really good picture. At any rate, I urge you to go see this for yourself. Same goes for Crater Lake. And Grand Canyon.

Anyway, where am I again? Oh yes, the Rocky Mountains, in Glacier National Park, driving Going to the Sun Road. I am one of the two unlucky ones who have to focus on driving rather than gawking. It requires intense concentration, and I’m not up for that on an extended vacation.

After we regain the powers of thought and speech, we take a hike from the visitor center up towards Hidden Lake. Here we are hiking in shorts, through snowfields. My shins get sunburned. Above the visitor center, we hike towards Bearhat Mountain and end up eating lunch perched on a big rock next to Hidden Lake.

After lunch, we continue to hike further uphill so Pete and Tom can touch a glacier. They end up touching a snow field and pretending.

We end up in Saint Mary Campground and I just feel like bear bait the whole time we are here. We’re at the bottom of a low hill which is covered with chest-high scrub… just the perfect height to conceal a sneaking grizzly bear.

My creeped-out bearanoya is contagious, so we clear out and (not entirely legally, I think) cook our dinner on the shore of Saint Mary Lake. After dinner, we move back to our campsite, as though the bears won’t bother us at dusk. As the last of the sun fades on the distant mountain peaks, Pete finds out the hard way that our campsite has a handicapped-accessible picnic table. (You know, the kind where the table part is longer than the bench?) Once second Pete’s talking and moving towards the end of the table to sit. The next second he’s on the ground with his feet in the air. It’s the “whee-oops maneuver,” we declare.

It’s hard to calm down at the end of a day like this. It takes your over-excited cones and rods an hour just to settle down once you close your eyes. Plus, I’m convinced there are bears everywhere.